Here is a Hamilton 925 with a private label marking on movement. I suppose this is a question for Tom, or anyone else who knows how to research these. Were these common in Hamiltons, or was this one unusual. The dial is NOT marked the same. This is REALLY DIRTY!

What IS the dial marked with?

It's double sunk with Hamilton Watch Co. in script. Hands are non matching.

As it was explained to me once, when a salesman wanted to see the "Head Man" it was easier to say he had a watch with their name custom engraved on it.

The dial was more expensive to Private Label than the Movement. So that is OK, as for the Hands, matching hands are fairly plentiful. I have seen many more private labels among the lower SN Hamiltons and presume it was part of their effort to expand their dealer hase.

The 925 is a nice Hunter "Carry" piece and should clean and present well in an appropriate Hunter Case.

Yes, David it is a nice movement. It is in a silverode OF case and I think it will run well after a cleaning and mainspring. (I should have my winder by the time I get back to K-Falls). I just don't see a lot of PL with the Hamiltons but like you said, it is a very early SN in the infancy of the company.

Hi Mike, I have a 924- serial number 252218, it is marked F. M. Langnecker- New Brighton, Pa., on the movement and dial. Looks just like your watch, except it is an open face model. It's a work in progress.

Gary

Hey Gary, Now that I've actually started looking FOR Hamilton PL I see what Dave Abbe is saying. Early on there were many, but I think as time went on, there were fewer and more "Watch of RR Accuracy" Hamiltons. They found a very good advertising slogan!

I think Hamilton did quite a bit of "private label" business maybe a bit more than the other brands. In the case of Elgin you see more PL dials than marked movements, I had one marked movement Elgin and by a jeweler and RR inspector and one of the family contacted me so I sold it to them to restore but with Hamilton I see a lot of PL marked movements. I will pick up some PL's like A.N. Anderson and others but I don't intentionally collect them as some do. To me it is a nice option to steer toward collecting PL watches but there tends to be a crowd out there with that same mind set and the bidding gets busy at times. I also think you will find PL in the early days because I think much after 1905-1910 it was not very economical to do the movement customization. Offhand it seems that Illinois did quite a bit of PL business also from my searches on ebay.

The Railroad time standards specifically dismissed PL watches as acceptable after the early 20Th Century. That pretty much put the "Kibosh" on many PL's.

Good point, but the 925, being unadjusted, was never RR standard anyhow.